One planet.
Humanity is facing its toughest challenge
Every day, our planet wakes with 200,000 more mouths
to feed.
1Every night, more than 870 million people go
to bed hungry.
1The need to produce more food is already acute, and
the world’s land, water and energy resources are under
unprecedented strain. Nearly 7 million hectares of farmland
are lost to soil erosion every year.
1Many people who
produce the world’s food are living in poverty. Biodiversity
is disappearing fast. And the challenge won’t get any easier:
by 2050, for example, 4 billion people will be living in countries
with water scarcity.
2Something needs to change
We only have one planet, and we’re using its resources
50 percent faster than it can take. What we’re asking
it to provide is simply not sustainable.
We can’t go
on like this
www.goodgrowthplan.com
1 Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations 2 United Nations Environment Programme
Six commitments
Make crops more efficient
Empower smallholders
Rescue more farmland
Help people stay safe
Help biodiversity flourish
Look after every worker
Six commitments to make a difference
Our future – everyone’s future – depends on finding solutions
to these global challenges. Humanity has to grow more, while
preserving natural resources. And it must ensure that rural
communities are healthy, vibrant and viable.
The Good Growth Plan is Syngenta’s commitment to make
a measurable contribution by 2020. We are setting ourselves
six specific targets related to improving resource efficiency,
rejuvenating ecosystems and revitalizing rural communities.
So we’re going to
go forward like this
10–20% higher yields
Why does this matter?
To feed its growing population, the world will have to grow more food in the next 50 years than it has produced in the past 10,000. And to be sustainable, this huge increase in production needs to be achieved while using resources far more efficiently. The challenge will be even greater if climate change continues to disrupt
temperature and weather patterns.
How are we going to do it?
By applying our unique breadth of technologies and integrated strategy, augmented by collaborations with partners. We will focus efforts not only on the world’s 8 million large-scale farmers, but also on the 450 million smallholder farmers, whose productivity often lags behind their developed market counterparts.
How are we going to measure it?
By quantifying “input use per unit of output produced” on reference farms for each crop in every region. In developing countries, where current input use per hectare is often very low, we will tailor the best solutions available to ensure from the outset the same resource efficiency we achieve in more developed growing systems. We have developed specific measurements for land productivity, nutrient efficiency, pesticide efficiency, application efficiency, water efficiency and energy efficiency.
What are the priorities for 2014?
First, we’re building a network of reference farms across geographies and crops. Then, we can measure and publish baseline benchmarks for each crop and region, and start working with external partners to collect data and audit the progress we make.
Increase the average productivity of the world’s major crops
by 20 percent without using more land, water or inputs.
Make crops
more efficient
Growing more corn with less water
Corn is particularly sensitive to water shortage – and in 2012, US corn farmers faced the worst drought in over 50 years. With irrigation equipment manufacturer Lindsay we developed an integrated solution
combining our drought-resistant seeds with tailored crop protection and automated irrigation. Even under drought conditions, yields were 10–20 percent higher compared to traditionally-farmed plots.
40% of farmland is seriously degraded
Improve the fertility of 10 million hectares of farmland
on the brink of degradation.
Rescue
more farmland
Keeping soil fit for farming
The Soil Leadership Academy became operational in early 2014. It aims to fight desertification and land degradation by accelerating land restoration worldwide. It is building a network linking research institutes, universities and key decision makers, and will offer information and training opportunities to policy makers and land users worldwide.
Why does this matter?
Every second, the world loses a soccer field of farmland to soil erosion, desertification and urban expansion.3
Every year, it loses enough land to produce 20 million tons of grain.3 Poor farming practices expose soil to wind
and rain erosion, leaving millions of hectares infertile each year. Some 40 percent of existing farmland is seriously degraded, and an area large enough to feed Europe is too depleted to produce food. Action is needed urgently; nature takes 500 years to replace 25mm of lost soil.4
How are we going to do it?
Plowing for weed control is a major cause of soil loss, leaving fertile earth more vulnerable to wind and rain erosion. We will help farmers increase fertility and productivity sustainably by improving soil structure and adding organic matter through appropriate use of fertilizers, crop rotation and techniques to avoid needless plowing. We can’t rescue 10 million hectares – the size of Iceland – on our own. So we’re working with
partners, including the United Nations Convention
to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), to share soil management knowledge.
How are we going to measure it?
We’ll measure our contribution to the conservation practices listed above through third-party surveys. These will monitor the number of hectares of farmland with minimum tillage, crop rotation and other sustainable soil management practices. Impact evaluations, run jointly with third parties, will check that these practices are improving soil fertility.
What are the priorities for 2014?
We have provided initial funding to support the creation of the UNCCD Soil Leadership Academy. This initiative aims to strengthen international policy, decision making and frameworks for effective implementation of soil conservation and sustainable land management.
3 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
4 Pimentel D, Pimentel M; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; Vol. 78, Issue 3, p. 660S–663S; September 2003
Boosting bee population up to 300-fold
Keeping diversity alive
Since 2001, through OPERATION POLLINATOR™ we
have been planting field margins with local wildflower seeds across Europe and the US – boosting bee populations up to 300-fold. We’re also helping to secure the variety of seeds that breeders need for the future. Syngenta was a founder sponsor of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, one of the largest institutions supporting seed banks worldwide.
http://www.operationpollinator.com
Why does this matter?
The sustainability of agriculture depends on biodiversity – for plant breeding, for pollination and for the diversity of our diet. More than a third of the world’s agricultural crops depend on pollination, but pollinator populations have been falling in many countries. Changing agricultural practices have altered rural landscapes and natural habitats. Expanding the use of land for crops can reduce forests, meadows and hedgerows that provide food and shelter for flora and fauna that make a sustainable agricultural landscape.
How are we going to do it?
We will help farmers to create diverse, rich habitats through methods ranging from reforestation to buffer strips and field margins. To preserve crop diversity, we are working with conservation groups to secure the seeds of trees, crop wild relatives and other valuable plant species.
How are we going to measure it?
We will collect data through on-farm surveys by third parties. These will monitor the number of hectares of farmland with field margins, buffer strips and other species protection programs. Impact evaluations, run jointly with third parties, will check that these practices are improving biodiversity.
What are the priorities for 2014?
Biodiversity programs need to be tailored to local conditions. So we are working with partners across the world to identify priority programs, agree specific targets for these programs and define protocols to measure progress over the years ahead.
Enhance biodiversity on
5 million hectares of farmland.
Help biodiversity
flourish
Why does this matter?
Over 2.5 billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Smallholder farmers are critical to the world’s food security, yet they often face high financial risks and low returns. Every day, 180,000 people leave rural communities to live in cities. Ensuring that farming is a viable and attractive occupation will help to create vibrant, productive rural communities.
How are we going to do it?
By providing tools and training that make agriculture more productive, efficient and profitable. Partnering with organizations such as USAID, we can bring farmers the products and know-how to raise productivity by 50 percent while preserving the long-term potential of their land. We will also help them finance higher-yielding products and enable them to reach markets to sell their crops.
How are we going to measure it?
We will measure the number of smallholders reached by estimating sales of specially-designed solutions, and by assessing projects and initiatives developed specifically to reach smallholder farmers. These include training, market access, financial solutions and mobile phone-based solutions.
We will share our information and processes with third party auditors and our partners for verification.
What are the priorities for 2014?
We already have strategies for reaching more smallholders in all regions, and recently committed to a major smallholder-focused investment program in Africa. We partner with the World Economic Forum’s Grow Africa and Grow Asia platforms. We are also seeking out new partnerships and opportunities to reach smaller growers worldwide. And we are developing new smallholder solutions in our R&D portfolio.
Reach 20 million smallholders and enable them
to increase productivity by 50 percent.
Empower
smallholders
30% yield increase
Grower insights lift yields
We developed GROMORE™ specifically for
smallholder rice farmers. It’s an integrated solution combining our technologies into simple protocols to establish and protect the crop. And it delivers immediate yield increases of up to 30 percent. Protocols are tailored to local conditions: in Bangladesh, for example, we drew on our experience with more than 200 smallholders in 20 villages.
9 million safely and effectively trained
Using chemicals safely and effectively
Over the past three years we’ve brought face-to-face training in using crop protection safely and effectively to some 9 million farmers worldwide. In China, we’ve done this in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture since 2000 – delivering training to almost 26,000 farmers in 2013 alone.Why does this matter?
Agriculture is the world’s second largest source of employment, often involving long hours and heavy work in challenging climates and harsh conditions. We have a responsibility to help improve occupational safety and health in agriculture.
How are we going to do it?
We aim to raise awareness of the risks associated with agricultural work, and share knowledge of how these can be effectively managed and prevented. Each year, we train as many farmers as possible through partnerships with local organizations and product retailers. To reach 20 million farm workers by 2020, we will partner with even more organizations. Training will be done by Syngenta employees or partners. We will ensure that training is high-quality and leads to measurable impacts on attitudes, knowledge and behavior.
How are we going to measure it?
Our data on numbers of people trained will be verified by external auditors. We will also collect data on our investment in training, farmers’ adoption of occupational safety and health practices, and numbers of reported accidents and health incidents. Recognizing that training alone does not guarantee safety, we are introducing new monitoring systems to track the effectiveness and impacts of training programs, and to identify bottlenecks that prevent behavioral change.
What are the priorities for 2014?
In 2014, we are establishing baseline data against which to measure our progress. Working with external partners, we are also refining our farmer training programs and adapting our training concepts to ensure that we can meet this new commitment.
Help people
stay safe
Train 20 million farm workers on labor safety,
especially in developing countries.
Why does this matter?
We recognize a responsibility to ensure that our supply chain meets internationally acceptable standards, especially in developing countries. We also recognize that, if the agricultural sector does not offer fair and attractive conditions for its workers, population drift from rural communities to cities will steadily undermine efforts to increase agricultural production.
How are we going to do it?
Labor standards are a priority concern for all our operations, both on farms and in production plants, and we expect the same of our suppliers.
We have strict contractual requirements – prohibiting the use of child labor, for example. We also encourage suppliers to meet our standards through intensive training and financial incentives. Since 2004, we have been working with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to address labor standards on seed farms, including child labor, health and safety, awareness of workers’ rights, wages and benefits, hours of work, harassment, abuse and
discrimination. We have expanded this program from India to Eastern Europe and Latin America: it now includes more than 22,000 suppliers. Major chemical suppliers play a critical role in our ability to meet demand, and an important part of our relationship with them is to ensure they meet high standards on health, safety and labor conditions.
How are we going to measure it?
Our programs will be independently verified by the FLA using an agreed risk-based approach. Our procurement and supply chain professionals will work with suppliers to continuously improve their labor practices, and we will monitor and report on progress.
What are the priorities for 2014?
We are undertaking a risk assessment of our supply chain to identify priorities and review our chemical supplier assessment protocol for labor practice measures. In 2014, we also aim to extend our seed supplier program to China, Vietnam and the Philippines and complete the assessment of our flowers suppliers.
Strive for fair labor conditions throughout
our entire supply chain network.
Look after
every worker
100% commitment to fair labor
Rural work must be fair
Working with the Fair Labor Association, we launched our Rural Work Must Be Fair initiative in Brazil in 2012. Designed to address issues such as working hours, wages, child labor and discrimination, it has been well received not only by fieldworkers and Syngenta employees but also by government and unions, who view it as a benchmark for the agricultural sector.
The targets we’ve set
are deliberately ambitious.
We’ll put all our company’s
passion and skills behind
meeting them, but we
don’t have all the answers.
We’re ambitious –
but realistic
We can’t do it all
on our own…
The challenges of feeding the world
sustainably are so big and far-reaching
that they demand a concerted response
from everyone concerned with the future
of agriculture.
We want to work in partnership with
governments, farmers, NGOs, international
organizations and academics. This is already
the way we work across our business – in
research and development, in sales and
marketing, in farmer training, and in
environmental programs.
so we’re developing
new partnerships…
In support of The Good Growth Plan, we’ve
already signed agreements with the Fair
Labor Association – expanding our existing
partnership, the US Agency for International
Development – to help us improve smallholder
productivity, and the United Nations Convention
to Combat Desertification – on action to
combat soil degradation.
We’d like to develop more partnerships for
each of our six commitments. So we’re talking
with environmental and developmental NGOs
about approaches to training, auditing our
reference farms, implementing programs to
preserve biodiversity, and advising us on how
to achieve greater impact.
we’re working with
farming communities…
The Good Growth Plan commits us to
continue working with farmers – large
and small – to enhance productivity.
Large-scale farmers have traditionally had
good access to new technologies and the
knowledge to apply them. As a result, they
now generate 75 percent
5of the world’s
agricultural output.
But nearly 40 percent
6of the world’s arable
land is farmed by small growers. And the
step change in productivity that’s needed will
only be achieved if they, too, can use new
technologies. That’s why The Good Growth
Plan has a particular focus on smallholders.
Our people around the world are working ever
more closely with them to understand their
needs and develop tailored solutions. Our
business strategy is to put the grower at the
center of our solutions. This means pioneering
new business models for access to markets
and finance.
we’re getting everyone
in Syngenta on board…
Syngenta consists of 28,000 committed
people. We work with farmers around the
world to help them produce the world’s
food while managing their land and natural
resources in the best way possible.
That’s our business.
So we’re aiming to involve every Syngenta
employee in some aspect of delivering
The Good Growth Plan. This is led from the
very top: the Syngenta Executive Committee
has been directly involved in developing this
program and takes ultimate responsibility
for achieving the targets. But this is a
commitment for the whole of Syngenta –
and delivering it will be a personal achievement
for every one of us.
5 IAASTAD 2008, Agriculture at a Crossroads 6 FAO ResourceSTAT, faostat.fao.org
we’re listening
to public opinion…
Will producing more food for a growing
population be one of the next decade’s
most important global challenges? We asked
this question to 7,500 people in cities in
13 countries across the world. And an
overwhelming majority agreed that it will.
There’s consensus that the challenge must
be addressed, and in an environmentally
sustainable way. But people aren’t so clear
about how that can be achieved, and about
the likely impact of increased production on
the environment and on the people who grow
the food and work on the farms.
Technology:
People are open to using
technology in a general sense to grow more
food. But in all but a few countries only
a minority support the use of pesticides,
fertilizers and genetically modified seeds.
Environment:
People believe more water
and land needs to be used to increase
food production. But they underestimate
the implications that this has on these
limited resources.
Responsibility:
Many people believe that
farming today is not conducted responsibly.
There’s a preference for local, organic and
urban farming, and a belief that governments
and large-scale farming have the greatest
potential to address the challenge of
food security.
People:
Most respondents believe that more
human labor should be used to produce more
food and that increased production will have
a positive impact on rural communities.
Overall, our research suggests that people
recognize the problems, but aren’t clear of
the way forward.
Find out more, read the full report: www.goodgrowthplan.com
www.goodgrowthplan.com
The Good Growth Plan adds new
measurements to our strategy. Through open
communications, we will seek to demonstrate
the sustainability of our business. This applies
to the way we manage and report The Good
Growth Plan, as it does to every part of
our business.
We will hold ourselves accountable through
rigorous measurements for each one of
the commitments, including third party
assessments. And we’ll report on our
progress annually.
We’ve identified independent experts to
measure and validate the results. They’ll run
on-farm measurement and training programs,
and conduct impact assessments. Our
progress reports will also be verified by
external auditors as part of our annual
assurance and corporate reporting process.
For our productivity measurements we will
collect data from over 3,500 farms across all
our key markets and crops to compare how
our solutions perform versus the standard
farming practice and yields in each region.
Our partners and third-party auditors will have
complete access to these reference farms.
We’re currently establishing baselines for all
of our commitments using reliable official
agronomy reports from sources such as
US Department of Agriculture, agricultural
market research companies and information
from partner organisations. The data collected
on these farms will count towards the
measurements of each of our six commitments.
we’ll share our progress openly
Making an impact
With The Good Growth Plan we aim to make
a deep, lasting and positive impact on the
farmers and rural communities who ensure
the world’s food security. That way, we can
contribute to the long-term sustainability of
our planet.
We can’t be certain that we’ll meet all our
ambitious targets by 2020. But we’re putting
the resources of our world-leading business
behind making them. As we see it, there’s
no alternative.
And of course, it doesn’t end in 2020. By then
we’ll have learned much more about making
lasting improvements to the way farmers
produce the world’s food. We’ll have new
solutions. And we’ll be able to keep improving
the impact of agriculture on the environment
and on people’s lives.
Article number 17180.040
© 2014 Syngenta AG, Basel, Switzerland. All rights reserved. Editorial completion: April 2014
® Registered trademarks of a Syngenta Group Company ™ Trademarks of a Syngenta Group Company
The SYNGENTA Wordmark, THE GOOD GROWTH PLAN and BRINGING PLANT POTENTIAL TO LIFE are trademarks of a Syngenta Group Company.
Printed on Hello Silk, made with wood fiber from managed forests and manufactured at a mill that has achieved the ISO14001 and EMAS environmental management standards.
